


Thirty-Five

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Aging, Birthday, Eel Dessert, Family, Fluff, Food, Gen, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Time Travel, Mentions of injuries (healed), Mortality, Roman Rogues Sidequest (Rusty Quill Gaming), Sasha does a good parenting, Squabbling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28236018
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: "Mum?" Riz says again. "How old are you anyway?”“Yeah!” Wilde says. “You don’t have birthdays, Boss! We’d’ve done a party for you!”“Are you one hundred years old?” Azus leans forward on his elbows. “I bet you’re secretly one hundred, and that’s how--”Amidus rolls his eyes. “She’s not a hundred, dumbass. She’d look really really old!”
Relationships: Amidus & Sasha Racket, Azus & Sasha Racket, Grizz "Riz" & Sasha Racket, Sasha Racket & Wilde (Rusty Quill Gaming: Roman Rogues Sidequest)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 63





	Thirty-Five

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this one written for ages, and it's never seemed like the right time to post it, but it's (the day after) the winter solstice and I'm soft and having feelings about time passing and whatnot, so here you go.

“And we open the door and--” 

“-- _ WHAM!--”  _

“--out of nowhere--”

“--out of the door--”

“Yeah, WHAM!”

“There was a spike trap?” Sasha guesses, trying very hard to sound serious, like this is a professional debriefing and not adorable at all. 

There’s a clamour of agreement from the table. Wilde proudly shows off her hands, which have been fully healed by now. From the way she gestures, it sounds like she was mostly grazed along the fingers, and potions are good with cuts like that. There’s not even any new scarring, but it would’ve hurt, and Sasha figures she’ll check in later, make sure Wilde’s all healed up properly. 

(Things don't always set right. Sasha's some proof of that. People don't always like to admit when something hurts as much as it does. Sasha's some proof of that too.)

“And while I was getting slashed through by spikes, Amidus wasn’t even paying attention--”

Amidus sniffs. “Well  _ I’m sorry  _ the traps aren’t as enlightening as the cultural  _ context  _ of the place!”

It’s Sasha’s thing, now, to make the kids dessert when they get back from a mission. If three times can be really called a “thing”. And this job seems to have gone real well, so they’re all cheerful around the table. She’s given them seconds and taken some for herself, cause they’re filling her in, right, and the story is long and involved and  _ loud  _ and Sasha wants to hear it all.

“How did you  _ know  _ that, though?” Azus asks, turning to Sasha. “How do you  _ know  _ there are gonna be spikes? Every time? We didn’t know and Wilde almost died  _ again _ \--” 

“I’m fine!”

“ _ You’re  _ fine! No, wait--” 

“HAH” Wilde sticks out her tongue, and Azus looks about ready to fling eel in retaliation. 

“Well look, right?” Sasha interjects loudly, partly to slow the endless wave of squabbling, and partly because she really does try to answer their questions. “It’s not, I mean, there aren’t rules to it. But like, you start to see patterns in the stuff that works, or the stuff that people  _ think _ is gonna work." She shifts in her seat. Her leg is starting to ache. "There’s really not a good way to explain it. I mean, we can talk about trends and things as part of training, but mostly you’ve just gotta break into a lot of places. You get as old as I am and you’re gonna see, right, it’s spikes or acid or-- or--”

Sasha is glad she’s already sitting down, cause she feels a bit weird all of a sudden. Dizzy like she still gets in open fields sometimes, but. But not.

Cause these kids, they’re probably gonna grow up, like,  _ really  _ grow up. And Sasha might actually be around to see it. Not like it’s guaranteed but it’s… possible. Even likely. And she looks at them all, in various states of being stabbed, halfway through a dessert she made, and she’s got no idea what they’re gonna turn out like.

Way back in the beginning, she’d thought-- cause she didn’t have anything else to think-- that maybe they’d turn out like their namesakes, kinda. But it’s loads more complicated than that. It’s not yes-or-no. Azus is loving and protective without being gentle and steadying. Riz is the one good with puns, but Wilde does have the appropriate amount of drama. Amidus would probably be really annoyed at Hamid, but he's got the volume. Sasha, she’s-- she’s never really watched anybody grow up before, not all through their life. She knows that people change, but she doesn’t know what to expect. Doesn’t know what to look for.

And that’s weird, but it’s also not weird. It’s just them.

“--Boss?” It’s Riz, and Sasha realizes she's completely missed the conversation, and Amidus talking about his own theories of traps, which, she'll ask about them later. Yeah. And maybe get him started on security  _ design  _ pretty soon, too, that'd help.  "Mum?" Riz says again.

“What?”

“I said, how old  _ are  _ you anyway?” 

“Yeah!” Wilde says. “You don’t have birthdays, Boss! We’d’ve done a party for you!”

“Are you one hundred years old?” Azus leans forward on his elbows. “I bet you’re secretly one hundred, and that’s how--”

Amidus rolls his eyes. “She’s not a hundred, dumbass. She’d look really really old!”

“Maybe she wouldn’t! Have you ever met anyone who was  _ one hundred years old? _ ”

“I bet it’s fifty,” Wilde guesses.

“Boss?” Riz asks again.

“Well,” Sasha begins. “I mean, time is, it’s a really complicated thing.” She tries not to think too much about her relationship to time. Makes her head hurt, makes her feel like she’ll get stuck in the thinking like Grizzop warned her about ages ago. “I mean, what do years  _ mean,  _ anyway?” 

Working with the numbers in two whole different timelines is complicated, and she was dead in there for a while and isn’t really sure how to count that. Plus birthdays hadn't ever really been a thing she did. But she tries to figure it out anyway. She’s curious now. She wants to have an answer.

Her hand slips into her boot and latches around a dagger to help her think.

“You’re fifteen, right Riz?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Right, and you got here when… so then…” she counts. Frowns. Counts again. 

The dizzy feeling is back.

“So it’s not-- I don’t know the years exact,” Sasha says slowly. They all lean in to listen. “But like, if you count it a certain way, I should be more’n.. I’m more’n thirty now. Not sure how much more, but… But might be thirty-five, I think."

It doesn’t feel right in her mouth. Thirty-five _.  _ That’s, that’s proper old.

“Told you it wasn’t a hundred,” says Amidus.

“Nah, but,” Sasha protests. “It’s better'n a hundred, for me anyway. I mean, thirty-five’s  _ real. _ ”

“It’s still well old,” Azus points out.

“I was closer!” Wilde crows.

Sasha doesn't tell them to be more subtle about their gambling as spoonfuls of dessert change plates. She looks down at her own dish without seeing it.

_ Thirty-five. _

Who would’ve thought?

“You don’t sound quite sure,” Rizz says, cautious, like he’s asking something else. 

Sasha swallows. “Nah, I… I just haven’t properly counted it out before and I, uh, Azus is right, it’s  _ well  _ old. Where I come from, even thirty was… thirty was rare.” She straightens her shoulders so as not to get lost in the thought. “So look.” She gestures at each of them with her dagger. “When all of you get that old-- and you’d better, right-- you’ve gotta promise me that you’ll all be real proud of yourselves, and of each other. Alright?"

They nod. Azus looks thoughtful, Wilde determined, Rizz downcast, Amidus surprisingly understanding.

"Say it," Sasha says. "You'll all be proud of gettin' old."

"We'll be proud," they chorus.

"I'm gonna be a hundred," Azus says.

"I'm gonna be a hundred and  _ ten _ ," Wilde counters.

Riz and Amidus share looks that Sasha can't quite understand. But that’s okay. She can check in with them when she has one-on-one debriefs later, like a thirty-five-year-old person does, who's maybe, sometimes, figured some of this out.

“Mum, can we be proud of you now?” Azus says suddenly, and that snaps Sasha right out of one moment and into another. 

She laughs a little, incredulous. That wasn’t how family pride worked. Or-- or was it? “I mean--”

Wilde slaps the table. “Yeah, Boss!”

Yeah, maybe it was.

“Do we get more dessert?” Riz asks. “Since you just figured it out, and that makes it  _ basically  _ your birthday?”

Sasha laughs some more. And sure, she’s pretty full, but it  _ is  _ a reason to celebrate. “Yeah, alright,” she says. “Eels for everybody!"

It distracts them, if nothing else. Gives Sasha a few moments more, while they all scramble for an even share, to sit with the feeling.  _ Thirty-five. _

She tucks the dagger back in her boot and flexes her hands. Even the one not all scarred up feels stiffer than it used to. It'd been picking locks for the best part of those thirty-five years, though, been broken at least twice, so that makes sense.

It’s weird, but it’s also not weird. It’s just her.

Amidus plops some dessert on her plate, and that brings her back.

"Right, now," she says, to a room that's a little quieter than she'd expected. "Spikes fly, then what? You've got some story to finish before I, like, turn forty or something just sitting here.” She grins, and they grin back before all jumping into it at once.

And yeah. She's  _ well  _ proud.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, I'm proud of you, dear reader, for making it to however old you are now. 
> 
> And thank you for reading! I'd love to hear what you thought.
> 
> I also exist, sometimes, on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores and twitter as @beardspores.


End file.
